Are you using Genesis Child Theme for your blog? Then Genesis eNews Extended widget is a great way to create a professional sign up form. There are many different email marketing services available that you can use with this widget. This article shows up how to configure genesis eNews Extended widget with MailChimp.
If you have not heard about MailChimp before, here is a brief description
MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing tools available in market. MailChimp has all of the features for email campaigns: custom forms, email creator and sender, automation, and analytics etc. If you do not want to spend anything for getting pro email marketing service, I would recommend to go for MailChimp. It offers a trial period in which their service is free for up to 2000 subscribers.
I recently shifted my Blog to Genesis Framework and now I am a die-hard fan of Genesis framework. I will soon write another article mentioning my experience with Genesis Framework.
How To Configure Genesis eNews Extended Widget with MailChimp
If you are already using MailChimp to build your lists, whether it’s for your newsletter or your blog subscribers, then you should configure Genesis eNews Extended widget today itself to get more benefits.
Follow below mentioned steps to configure Genesis eNews Extended widget with MailChimp:
Setting Up MailChimp
Follow below mentioned steps to set up your MailChimp account :
- Login (or Sign up) to MailChimp account.
- Go to List and create an email list. Name it appropriately. Eg: ‘Your Blog Subscribers’, ‘Your Blog Newsletter’.
- Open this List and Click on ‘Signup Forms’.
- Now select the type of Signup Form you want to use from below mentioned options:
Here we are using Embedded Forms in this example.
- A form will open containing the embed code for your Sign Up form.
Note: If you do not want to use Genesis eNews Extended widget,you can also copy paste above mentioned highlighted code in your text widget to use it on Genesis child theme directly. You will get a sign up form similar to the one on the right, depending on which form you chose in MailChimp.
- Copy highlighted code in Notepad and search for ‘form action=”’ Copy action code. It will be like this –
<form action=“//catchupdates.us11.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=e4fdca3768991fb5b90dcde8e&id=ad96070611” method=”post” id=”mc-embedded-subscribe-form” name=”mc-embedded-subscribe-form” class=”validate” target=”_blank” novalidate>
Setting up Genesis eNews Extended widget
- Log into your WordPress dashboard
- Go to Appearance –> Widgets
- Click and drag the Genesis – eNews Extended widget onto your widget area (such as Primary sidebar, secondary bar, footer area) wherever you wish to place your Sign Up form.
(If you have not install this plugin yet, you can install it : Plugins –> Add New Plugin –> Genesis – eNews Extended –> Install –> Activate
4. Once you have place that in widget area, you will see below parts that you need to configure –
5. Fill the information in these fields as mentioned:
Form Action: You need to paste the form action URL that you copied from your MailChimp embed code earlier.
E-mail Field: EMAIL
First Name Field: FNAME
Last Name Field: LNAME
Ideally you need to put these fields that match to your generated HTML embedded code. Considering you are not changing any parameters in HTML code, these are the by default values of the parameters. To be sure, you can check these fields parameters from your above copied HTML code. (See highlighted below)
<input type=”email” value=”” name=”EMAIL” class=”required email” id=”mce-EMAIL”>
<div class=”mc-field-group”> <label for=”mce-FNAME”> First Name <span class=”asterisk”>* </span></label> <input type=”text” value=”” name=”FNAME” class=”required” id=”mce-FNAME”> </div>
<div class=”mc-field-group”> <label for=”mce-LNAME”>Last Name <span class=”asterisk”>* </span> </label> <input type=”text” value=”” name=”LNAME” class=”required” id=”mce-LNAME”> </div>
6. Save it and you are done. Open your blog/website and now you can see the Sign-Up form there.
The Sign Up form is synced with your MailChimp’s email list. You can see the number of subscribers by going to your MailChimp account –> Email List.
I hope now you know how to configure Genesis eNews Extended Widget with MailChimp.Frankly speaking, Genesis eNews Extended widget and MailChimp make a great combination. If you’re running a WordPress site with a StudioPress theme I highly recommend giving Genesis eNews Extended and MailChimp a try. You will love to see this combination and will never regret.
Are you already using Genesis eNews Extended with MailChimp? Do share your feedback and suggestions in comments below.
Mohit Arora
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Jeremy Williams says
Thanks for the great walkthrough. I have one more question for you.
I have a specific group inside a list that I want to use to have people sign up through the enews Extended widget. How would I specify a specific group within a list as the place that subscribers are placed within MailChimp?